Sunday, June 11, 2017
162 - La Notti Bianche, 1957, Italy. Dir. Luchino Visconti.
Welcome to the White Nights.
No, this is not the 1985 Taylor Hackford dance movie starring Mikhael Baryshnikov and Gregory Hines.
This is the 1957 Visconti romantic drama starring Maria Schell (whom you may know as Vond-Ah, the skeptical scientist on Krypton in Richard Donner's Superman: The Movie) opposite not one but two international superstar leading men.
How can you possibly upstage Marcello Mastroianni, the world's great leading man?
Stand him up next to Prince Charming himself, Jean Marais from Jean Cocteau's 1946 Beauty and the Beast. We have seen him in that movie, as well as Cocteau's 1950 Orpheus and Jean Renoir's 1956 Elena and Her Men.
The plot is simple. Mastoianni as Mario runs into Maria Schell as Natalia. On the streets above the canals of Venice.
She tells him of her love of Jean Marais as L'Inquillino, who won her heart and has disappeared. She is waiting for his return.
As Mario waits with her, he falls in love with her as well.
How will the triangle turn out?
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